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One of the doctors came out of the tent in a bloodstained
apron, holding a cigar between the thumb and little finger of
one of his small bloodstained hands, so as not to smear it. He
raised his head and looked about him, but above the level of the
wounded men. He evidently wanted a little respite. After turning
his head from right to left for some time, he sighed and looked
down.
"All right, immediately," he replied to a dresser
who pointed Prince Andrew out to him, and he told them to carry
him into the tent.
Murmurs arose among the wounded who were waiting.
"It seems that even in the next world only the gentry
are to have a chance!" remarked one.
Prince Andrew was carried in and laid on a table that had
only just been cleared and which a dresser was washing down. Prince
Andrew could not make out distinctly what was in that tent. The
pitiful groans from all sides and the torturing pain in his thigh,
stomach, and back distracted him. All he saw about him merged
into a general impression of naked, bleeding human bodies that
seemed to fill the whole of the low tent, as a few weeks previously,
on that hot August day, such bodies had filled the dirty pond
beside the Smolensk road. Yes, it was the same flesh, the same
chair a canon, the sight of which had even then filled him with
horror, as by a presentiment.
There were three operating tables in the tent. Two were occupied,
and on the third they placed Prince Andrew. For a little while
he was left alone and involuntarily witnessed what was taking
place on the other two tables. On the nearest one sat a Tartar,
probably a Cossack, judging by the uniform thrown down beside
him. Four soldiers were holding him, and a spectacled doctor was
cutting into his muscular brown back.
"Ooh, ooh, ooh!" grunted the Tartar, and suddenly
lifting up his swarthy snub-nosed face with its high cheekbones,
and baring his white teeth, he began to wriggle and twitch his
body and utter piercing, ringing, and prolonged yells. On the
other table, round which many people were crowding, a tall well-fed
man lay on his back with his head thrown back. His curly hair,
its color, and the shape of his head seemed strangely familiar
to Prince Andrew. Several dressers were pressing on his chest
to hold him down. One large, white, plump leg twitched rapidly
all the time with a feverish tremor. The man was sobbing and choking
convulsively. Two doctors- one of whom was pale and trembling-
were silently doing something to this man's other, gory leg. When
he had finished with the Tartar, whom they covered with an overcoat,
the spectacled doctor came up to Prince Andrew, wiping his hands.
He glanced at Prince Andrew's face and quickly turned away.
"Undress him! What are you waiting for?" he cried
angrily to the dressers.
His very first, remotest recollections of childhood came back
to Prince Andrew's mind when the dresser with sleeves rolled up
began hastily to undo the buttons of his clothes and undressed
him. The doctor bent down over the wound, felt it, and sighed
deeply. Then he made a sign to someone, and the torturing pain
in his abdomen caused Prince Andrew to lose consciousness. When
he came to himself the splintered portions of his thighbone had
been extracted, the torn flesh cut away, and the wound bandaged.
Water was being sprinkled on his face. As soon as Prince Andrew
opened his eyes, the doctor bent over, kissed him silently on
the lips, and hurried away.
After the sufferings he had been enduring, Prince Andrew enjoyed
a blissful feeling such as he had not experienced for a long time.
All the best and happiest moments of his life- especially his
earliest childhood, when he used to be undressed and put to bed,
and when leaning over him his nurse sang him to sleep and he,
burying his head in the pillow, felt happy in the mere consciousness
of life- returned to his memory, not merely as something past
but as something present.
The doctors were busily engaged with the wounded man the shape
of whose head seemed familiar to Prince Andrew: they were lifting
him up and trying to quiet him.
"Show it to me.... Oh, ooh... Oh! Oh, ooh!" his
frightened moans could be heard, subdued by suffering and broken
by sobs.
Hearing those moans Prince Andrew wanted Andrew wanted to
weep. Whether because he was dying without glory, or because he
was sorry to part with life, or because of those memories of a
childhood that could not return, or because he was suffering and
others were suffering and that man near him was groaning so piteously-
he felt like weeping childlike, kindly, and almost happy tears.
The wounded man was shown his amputated leg stained with clotted
blood and with the boot still on.
"Oh! Oh, ooh!" he sobbed, like a woman.
The doctor who had been standing beside him, preventing Prince
Andrew from seeing his face, moved away.
"My God! What is this? Why is he here?" said Prince
Andrew to himself.
In the miserable, sobbing, enfeebled man whose leg had just
been amputated, he recognized Anatole Kuragin. Men were supporting
him in their arms and offering him a glass of water, but his trembling,
swollen lips could not grasp its rim. Anatole was sobbing painfully.
"Yes, it is he! Yes, that man is somehow closely and painfully
connected with me," thought Prince Andrew, not yet clearly
grasping what he saw before him. "What is the connection
of that man with my childhood and life?" he asked himself
without finding an answer. And suddenly a new unexpected memory
from that realm of pure and loving childhood presented itself
to him. He remembered Natasha as he had seen her for the first
time at the ball in 1810, with her slender neck and arms and with
a frightened happy face ready for rapture, and love and tenderness
for her, stronger and more vivid than ever, awoke in his soul.
He now remembered the connection that existed between himself
and this man who was dimly gazing at him through tears that filled
his swollen eyes. He remembered everything, and ecstatic pity
and love for that man overflowed his happy heart.
Prince Andrew could no longer restrain himself and wept tender
loving tears for his fellow men, for himself, and for his own
and their errors.
"Compassion, love of our brothers, for those who love
us and for those who hate us, love of our enemies; yes, that love
which God preached on earth and which Princess Mary taught me
and I did not understand- that is what made me sorry to part with
life, that is what remained for me had I lived. But now it is
too late. I know it!"
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